ZACK SNYDER DOES not seem like the kind of guy who is glued to RottenTomatoes.com. Nevertheless, he is very aware that his sci-fi opus, Rebel Moon —Part One: A Child Of Fire received something of a critical mauling when it hit Netflix in December. “I don’t really have a rebuttal to the reviews,” he says, when Empire catches up with him. “For whatever reason, the reaction to my movies is very polarising, and it always has been. The movie, it doesn’t seem like there’s that much in it that would warrant such visceral responses.”
Snyder is in an affable mood when Empire speaks to him in late February, perhaps because mere minutes before the interview he completed work on Rebel Moon —Part Two: The Scargiver. “They’re down at editorial, drinking champagne,” he laughs. And with this instalment, Snyder is ready to prove detractors wrong.
For starters, Part Two will properly amp up the Kurosawa, focusing on the conflict between the overwhelming forces of the evil Imperium, led by Ed Skrein’s Atticus Noble, and a peaceful farming village and the warriors, recruited in the first film, tasked with defending it. “It’s a war film, 100 per cent,” says Snyder. “It’s got way more action than the first movie, very intense and crazy action.”